The first Egyptian Y Combinator startup HoverChat (formerly Ninja SMS) graduated and is going strong. The name change wasn’t the only new feature, but perhaps the most interesting is their in-app store, where there’s been over 125 thousand items purchased in-app in the first month. What’s also interesting is that users have consistently increased their SMS output by up to 50% in some countries after installing the app.

Having a healthy level of entrepreneurship in their country is a great thing for governments, not least because it can be a significant source of tax income. However, to reap the fruits you first need to sow — or, relating to governments, to help aspiring startup founders to build their businesses.

According to the AP , the social network, known as ZunZeneo, was established by way of an elaborate network of shell companies and was financed by a foreign bank to limit the chances of it being traced back to the US. Once ZunZeneo was operational, USAID targeted young Cubans for over two years, the report claims. The service was similar to Twitter in its communication features, and was going to be used as a tool to establish dissent against the Cuban government before its plug was pulled in 2012 due to lack of funding, according to the report.

It's time for our weekly roundup of the best new iPhone and iPad apps and games to have emerged on Apple's App Store. This week's selection includes monsters, calendars, scanning utilities, Family Guy photo-snaps, Mr Tickle, beautiful puzzler Monument Valley, and the quietly-launched new game from Candy Crush Saga publisher King. As ever, prices are correct at the time of writing, but may have changed by the time you read this. (Free + IAP) means in-app purchases are used within the app. Want more apps? Browse previous Best iPhone and iPad apps roundups on The Guardian. And if you're looking for Android apps instead, browse the archives of the weekly Best Android Apps roundups. APPS Sago Mini Monsters (£1.99) Sago Sago is the preschool-focused sister studio to acclaimed children’s apps developer Toca Boca, and its latest app continues its colourful, playful run of form. Aimed at toddlers, it helps them create, colour and feed a monster, before saving snapshots of their favourites. iPhone / iPad Fantastical 2 for iPad (£6.99) On iPhone, Fantastical 2 is one of the best third-party calendar apps: an alternative to Apple’s default iOS datekeeping app.

Overturning net neutrality is not about denying anyone access to the Internet, but rather about being able to differentiate service levels. If users are actually charged for usage, that may discourage using too much. If net neutrality is taken off the table, all users, both consumers and businesses, will select their service levels based on what they need and are willing to pay for – whether that’s massive amounts of TV streaming or just basic email use. For the service providers, enforcing net neutrality means the over-the-top players have been able to make money off the existing backbone (Internet) that regulation has provided. There are limits that we are easily beginning to hit due to streaming, growth of mobile, and the impending tsunami of Internet of Things. When limits are reached the only way to apportion a scarce resource is to charge by use and demand.

The two biggest Internet players in China–Alibaba and Tencent Holdings – are getting more aggressive in their efforts to connect their online services with China’s traditional retail and service sectors. Both Alibaba and Tencent, a giant in online games and social networks, offer their own electronic payment systems that also handle mobile transactions, and they are looking for ways to get people to make mobile payments while shopping at brick-and-mortar stores, going to restaurants and movie theaters or using public transportation. In China, where traditional retailers and other offline services aren’t tech-savvy and don’t always provide the most convenient services, there is a lot of room for Alibaba and Tencent to step in and fill the void.

“Walter White taught me a lot—some of it useful, some of it dangerous,” said Cranston in a statement today. “With this book, I want to tell the stories of my life and reveal the secrets and lies that I lived with for six years shooting Breaking Bad."

And, if you own any BlackBerry that works on our network and also want the fairness and freedom that comes with being a T-Mobile customer, you can bring in your BlackBerry any time and enjoy Un-carrier benefits like no annual contract, unlimited everything with no overages on our wicked-fast network, no hidden device costs, no upgrade wait – and international roaming at no extra cost. And, don’t forget, you get to enjoy your BlackBerry with all of these Un-carrier advantages on America’s fastest nationwide 4G LTE network.
In fact, to show our appreciation for all current consumers so passionate and loyal to all things BlackBerry, we’re offering a $100 credit toward any new device, including the BlackBerry Q10 or the Z10. And this offer is good through the end of the year. So you can take your time.

The smartphone market in the rich world is maturing. The growth is in the emerging markets and, increasingly, as hardware prices go down and connectivity goes up, the growth will be coming from poor countries. Cell phone ownership (albeit of the dumbphone kind) is already very high in sub-Saharan Africa; if Google's Project Loon doesn't make cheap wireless high-speed internet ubiquitous some other technology will; and some time soon the equivalent of a second-generation iPhone will be as cheap in poor-country-salary hours as a cell phone is today.

Weibo , the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, has released a pricing range for its upcoming IPO that would peg shares between $17-19, valuing the company between $3.5-$3.9 billion, The New York Times reports .

Mind you, this fully digital, 1080p camcorder doesn’t just resemble a Super-8 camera. It’s actually built around the same specifications, with a ⅓-inch-type sensor that’s about the same size as a frame of 8mm film.

Recently, at Macworld/iWorld 2014 , iMore's Rene Ritchie had a chance to catch up with Dave Teare —co-founder of AgileBits, the vendor behind 1Password—and to hear about what's new with the app, including version 4.5 for iOS (redesigned for iOS 7) and the app's appearance on Android.

is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's record 34 million unique visitors worldwide and 15 million social media followers are one of the most influential and engaged online communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.

A large portion of the film is then spent following Laura through the streets of Glasgow as she smiles and flirts and asks the men she meets for directions. We don’t know what she’s looking for, but Laura clearly does, and when she finally identifies her target and offers him a lift in her van, Under the Skin briefly takes a turn for the erotic.

This 'biodegraded aesthetic' challenges ( putting it culturally and psychologically correctly) not just the definition of "house". It can be an environmental organic bio processor that can do much more than harmonize systems that function the way the human complex does. Like the analog of the canopy of tall trees is to Gothic Churches this metaphor must also push the envelope to become a habitable sustainable energy generator that provides it inhabitants with the support needed for healing, growth and development. If it does not do this, in my opinion, it would be another form for form sake adventure of the many we have seen that do not deliver the total sustainable experience people need.

Since I left college and started working for myself, finding structure in my day to day life has become very important. The biggest change I’ve made has been adjusting my schedule: in the middle of last summer, I switched to an early morning wake up (between 5:30 and 7am, optimizing for 6 hours of sleep). Unfortunately, despite the promises of proponents of this approach, my body has not adapted well to the shift: every day, getting out of bed is one of the hardest things I do [1]. Having an early morning job provides a concrete task that I need to get up and do, making the mental battle of escaping my blankets much easier.

Everything in Sitedrop is folder-based, so you can manage these workspaces the same way you manage your files on your desktop, and you can control whether or not others can upload files to your site, or only view those you’ve already shared. The sites can also be password-protected for privacy purposes, and once logged in, users can collaborate on the content via additional tools for favoriting items and commenting. You can even drag links to webpages into your Dropbox, which Sitedrop will then render online.

Secret is a new way to share what you’re thinking and feeling with your friends.
Write anything that’s on your mind, free of judgment.
Make your words stand out by adding a photo or color backdrop. Customize further with blur, textures, and moods.
Comment on your friends’ posts with a new and unique avatar for each conversation.
When friends like your post, it spreads to their friends. The …

In a statement on Thursday, the Italian regulator said Google has not only paid the fine, but also adopted recommended measures in Italy, including: putting big signs or stickers on the Street View cars to identify them as such; putting a notice of which locations will be visited on its website three days ahead of the filming; and publishing similar notices through “at least two newspapers and… through a local radio station for each region visited.”

It is not easy being a student graphic designer, there is too much eye candy and really 'cool' identity systems. The biggest hurdle for a student is separating 'cool' design from effective design.
As far as this is concerned, Ikea has had no problem adapting and has appealed to a huge customer segment. This identity seems a little shallow and made for/by someone in their early 20's. I would suggest that Joe be very proud of the exposure his work has and consider that 80% of design should be concept and research and that execution makes up the remaining 20%–not the other way around.

Google has released a video (embedded below) showing a glimpse of what’s going on behind the scenes at Project Ara, one of the hardware shunkworks projects coming out of its Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP). The ATAP group is also working on a 3D mapping handset which Google showed off in February, called Project Tango .

Ortiz told The Boston Globe on Thursday that the selfie was spontaneous. “I don’t understand where that stuff is coming from," he said. “That was one of those things that just happened. I gave him the jersey, and the photographers were going to take their pictures and I thought, really at the last second, maybe I should snap a shot with my phone while I have the chance ... It had nothing to do with no deals.”

After multiple leaks , the Samsung Ativ SE is now official. As expected, the device arrives with Windows Phone 8, a 5-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera, and an unspecified 2.3GHz quad-core processor (most likely the Snapdragon 800) with 2GB of RAM. It also has a 2,600mAh battery, 16GB of storage, and microSD card expansion.

As Dropbox has grown in value, Mr. Jaswa has sought to curb the potential market for its pre-IPO shares, which he believes can get employees too focused on day-by-day changes in valuation. “When you ask people what’s the worst thing about being a public company, what they tell you is the morale of the team is dictated by the stock price,” said Mr. Jaswa, who previously worked as a McKinsey consultant and in corporate development at Cisco Systems Inc.

My regular physician or local hospital didn’t deliver the diagnosis. Instead, a doctor from Turkey contacted me on Skype to go through a detailed analysis of my DNA. Because of some family history with early onset Alzheimer’s and an interest in what’s becoming an emerging field, I sought out some direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing within the last six months. Turns out that these days, it takes nothing more than some money and a mailed spit sample to get a routine DNA exam; a brief glimpse at fate is then conveniently sent to your inbox.

At the AIIM Conference this week in Orlando, it struck me that companies are remarkably inflexible when it comes to adopting new technologies, but the crowd at AIIM wasn’t alone. Perhaps nothing exemplifies this better than the brouhaha over the Windows Start button, a feature which, by the way, dates back to Window 95 — as in 1995.

They do say don’t knock something til you’ve tried it, so I handed over 69p to iTunes in order to have a poke around the app and see what it’s really like. As it boots up the camera, it flashes up a little message which range from "Good hair day!" to "Make me look good".

ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Friday ruled that a blanket ban of social-media website YouTube violated human rights and ordered most of the restrictions be lifted, citing a top court ruling this week that scrapped a similar ban on microblogging site Twitter.

Apple wouldn't be where it is today if it hadn't redefined consumer electronics. VCE could very well do the same to the enterprise cloud market. First, it just has to convince companies to 'think different.'

At $19 per share, Opower’s founders will each own shares worth over $100 million (at the time of the IPO). With this IPO, Opower is showing that young tech entrepreneurs can tackle meaningful problems like energy efficiency and climate change and still achieve the Silicon Valley dream of financial success. Valley venture firm NEA backed Opower early on, and its shares are worth $170 million at the time that IPO starts trading. Kleiner Perkins and Accel backed Opower later in its life and their shares are worth $43 million at the time of the IPO.

After steady improvement since atomic clocks were invented in the 1950s, researchers think they are reaching the limit of accuracy with the technology. Any clock that is more precise would begin to feel subtle effects explained by Einstein’s theory of relativity. Clocks experience a gravitational warping from massive objects. The Earth, an extremely massive object, causes clocks closer to its surface to run slower relative to those above it. Cesium atoms in fountain clocks actually experience time differently at the top of the 3-foot chamber than at the bottom. An extremely precise measurement device would be confused by this slight difference, making its time keeping inaccurate.

But I’m older and more sensible now and happy to report that I’m over my fear of jaws that come out of jaws. I know because I can watch the incredible GIF above without suffering a conniption fit. That’s a moray eel, and that white bit you see emerging from its throat? It’s a second set of jaws that fire forward and pull prey down its gullet, just like in Alien … or so people who have seen the whole movie tell me.

So the acquisition of Conew was seen as a strategy of Kingsoft to fight against Qihoo who disrupted the China’s Internet security market by making its paid security service for free. So were the next moves by the new Conew. Like Qihoo, the combination of Conew and Kingsoft’s anti-virus business would offer their services for free, develop a web browser Cheetah and expand overseas.

One explanation for this track record of acceptance is geography. Silicon
Valley encompasses San Francisco, home of the American gay rights movement
and centre of liberal activism in the United States. It is perhaps no
surprise that the city's history has had a profound influence on the ethos
of technology companies based there.

“We’re enormously sorry for the inconvenience caused by this issue,” reads the letter from Fadell. “The team and I are dedicated to ensuring that we can stand behind each Nest product that comes into your home, and your 100% satisfaction and safety are what motivates us. Please know that the entire Nest team and I are focused on fixing this problem and continuing to improve our current products in every way possible. If you don’t want to keep your Nest Protect smoke alarm, we will give you a complete refund.”

I've always thought that Pixar was like a well-loved stepchild for Steve— conceived before he entered our lives, maybe, but still nurtured by him in our formative years. In the decade before his death, I watched Steve change Pixar even as Pixar changed him. I say this while acknowledging that no segment of one's life can be divorced from the rest; Steve was, of course, always learning from his family and from his colleagues at Apple. But there was something special about the time he spent with us—enhanced, counterintuitively, by the fact that Pixar was his sideline. His wife and children, of course, were paramount, and Apple was his first and most heralded professional achievement; Pixar was a place he could relax a little and play.

OCEAN BEACH - A young Ocean Beach boy is in the spotlight after he discovered a back door in to one of the most popular gaming systems in the world.
When 5-year-old Kristoffer Von Hassel is playing his Xbox, his feet don't touch the ground. But something he did has made the smartest guys at Microsoft pay attention.
“I was like yea!” said Kristoffer.
Just after Christmas, Kristoffer's parents noticed he was logging into his father's Xbox Live account and playing games he wasn't supposed to be.
“I got nervous. I thought he was going to find out,” said Kristoffer.
In video shot soon after, his father, Robert Davies, is heard asking Kristoffer how he was doing it.
A suddenly excited Kristoffer showed Dad that when he typed in a wrong password for his father’s account, it clicked to a password verification screen. By typing in space keys, then hitting enter, Kristoffer was able to get in through a back door.
Kristoffers' father, who works in computer security, was one proud papa.

Castlight Health, which has been at the forefront of price transparency, went public today. Investors poured in, sending the stock up from an IPO price of $16 a share to nearly $40, which values the company at more than $3 billion. Health IT investors and entrepreneurs who have been eagerly waiting for a liquidity event got it in spades. Castlight is a barometer for the industry. Asked whether the prospect of a bubble weighed on his shoulders, Giovanni Colella, Castlight’s chief executive and a founder replied: “We’re focused on building an iconic company.” One big winner: Bryan Roberts, a venture capitalist at Venrock, and a co-founder, who bolsters his reputation as the most successful digital health investor .

What’s fun is that we’ll be able to vet market reaction independently: If development rates pick up, and more apps are released for Microsoft’s platforms, its bets succeeded. If we see a flattening, or even decline, Microsoft will have failed. Furthermore, a minor incline is not enough. Microsoft needs to greatly increase the pace at which developers build and release apps for its greater Windows platform.

Walt Destler created the AI code, and developer Matthew Wegner created the robot while procrastinating work on Team Colorblind’s upcoming Aztez game. It looks like the Team Colorblind Twitch stream is normally used for streaming game development, so there’s no telling how long this robot will be around.

That’s the conclusion of a new research report issued by Resolution, a social and search advertising focused agency under the Omnicom umbrella. Based on an analysis of 20 clients’ social media activity in 2013 representing $37 million in ad spending, Resolution found that Twitter ads generate clicks at a significantly higher rate than Facebook. As a result, the firm found, advertisers are significantly dialing up their Twitter ad spending.

The real winner in this battle though is the Nexus 5. At 5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 in (137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm) and 4.59 oz (130 g) it is noticeably smaller and more portable than its rivals, yet still sports a 5in display. While all these devices are substantially larger than the 4in iPhone 5S at 4.87 x 2.31 x 0.30 in (123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm) and 3.95 oz (112g) the Nexus 5 can still be used one handed with a stretch. If you have large hands the S5 may just about creep into that category, but the significant extra height of the M8 – due to the large bottom bezel – means few will be able to stretch their thumb to the top left of the screen.

The centrality of the nodes within the network has been calculated using the PageRank algorithm. The rank is important as it highlights those geographical places where the network is most influenced by power (e.g., potential data surveillance) and weakness (e.g., potential service disruption).